On 20th April a tourist boat with two adult crew, was making Continue reading
Tag Archives: HMS Gannet
Search and Rescue privatisation suspended
Just as Prestwick’s HMS Gannet is announced as the 2010 busiest Search and Rescue (SAR) unit Continue reading
Possible reprieve for HMS Gannet Search and Rescue
Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander, announced today (17th June) that certain projects approved Continue reading
Mather nails Government and MoD confusions over SAR privatisation
Jim Mather, Argyll’s MSP, is concerned about the confusion Continue reading
Drunken Fingal skipper fined £3,300
59 year-old Stanlislaw Sowinski has been fined £3,300 Continue reading
9 members of HMS Gannet Search and Rescue crew honoured for outstanding bravery
An almost unprecedented number – nine – crew from a single Search & Rescue (SAR) team – the twenty-man HMS Gannet – based at Prestwick and often in action around Argyll and west coast waters – have been honoured for outstanding bravery.
The unit covers a 98,000 sq mile area from the Northern Irish coast to the Lake District, to Edinburgh and to Ben Nevis. In 2008 it was the busiest SAR unit in the UK for the second consecutive year, with 347 rescues to its name.
But the 8 crew were honoured specifically for two operations. The main one was when the ferry Riverdance started listing badly in high winds in the waters off Blackpool in January 2008. The HMS Gannet crew winched 23 people off safely in extremely difficult conditions. There was also a significant rescue in Loch Long in Argyll.
- Two members were awarded the Air Force Cross – Lieutenant Commander Martin Lanni and Lieutenant Mike Paulet.
- Two members were awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery in the Air – Lt Cdr Martin Ford and Petty Officer Darren Craig.
- Four members were awarded the Commander in Chief Fleet Commendation – Flight Sergeant Euan Gibson, Lt Olivia Millies and Lt Tony Sherwin.
- One member was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal – Leading air crewman Kevin Regan.
Three rescued from capsized fishing boat near Dunoon
Earlier this afternoon (11th February) at around 2.00pm, a fishing boat capsized near Dunoon. Clyde Coastguard have confirmed this, saying that the cause of the capsize is not yet known.
A lifeboat, a police helicopter and a Royal Navy helicopter were scrambled to help the sailors but they were picked up by another fishing boat.
The three men were then taken by helicopter to Dunoon General Hospital but were not thought to be seriously injured. A Strathclyde Police spokeswoman said: ‘They all appear to be fine, just a bit cold’.
UPDATE 12th February : The fishing boat involved was the 40ft Belfast-registered Jubilee Star which works out of Troon with a Scottish crew. She was prawn fishing in deep water south of the Gantocks rocks off Dunoon.
The capsize seemes to have been caused by the boat’s nets snagging. She sank in minutes and her three-man crew had to jump into the water to escape. An RN Search and Recue helicopter (SAR) from HMS Gannet, Helensburgh’s inshore RIB lifeboat, and Dunoon Coastguard team joined other ships and rescue services at the scene.
The nearest boat to the Jubilee Star when it capsized was the Guide Me, registered in Kirkcaldy in Fife and skippered by Matthew Currie from Tighnabruaich in Argyll. The Guifde Me was also prawn fishing in the waters around the Gantocks. The Guide Me picked up the three men, one who had got on to the Jubilee Star’s life raft which had inflated normally, the other hanging on to the side of it and the third further away in the water.
The three men were taken to Dunoon & District General Hospital suffering from mild hypothermia. All were released last night. Mathhew Currie from Guide Me knew the skipper of the Jubilee Star as Gary McKinnon and Robert Jack as one of two crewmen.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is likely to investigate the incident.
Three climbers killed in avalanche on Glencoe’s Buachaille Etive Mor
Three climbers have been killed in an avalanche on Buachaille Etive Mor, the mountain guarding the entrance to Glencoe. Two are brothers in theeir sixties and from Northern Ireland - Eamonn and John Murphy and one is a Scot from Monifeith, Brian Murray.
Helicopters were called to the mountain at 12.00 on Saturday (24th January) when a total of nine people, in different parties, were caught up in the avalanche. One was an RAF aircraft from Lossiemouth and the other from the Royal Navy’s HNS Gannet.
The RAF SAR helicopter from Lossiemouth took two people off the mountain and flew them to Belford Hospital in Fort William. One man was pronounced dead on arrival and the second died later. The third body was found later in the snow.
This afternoon (Sunday 25th police confirmed that there were three dead, including the two brothers.
Tom Richardson, a walker who survived the avalanche and called the rescue teams said: ‘As I got to the top of the pass, the edge of the slope – it wasn’t corniced – broke away and we were taken down in an avalanche, some of us rode out the top of it and others got buried’.
Five others were rescued from the mountain and one person is being treated for a shoulder injury.
John Grieve, Glencoe Mountain Rescue leader, paid tribute to the team the dead men were with. He said: ‘The first two had been dug out by the party themselves. They did very well. They located one of the buried friends and started resuscitation. Then using their ice axes as probes they quickly located the second member of the party and dug him out as well’.
Northern Constabulary is advising climbers that the risk of avalanches will remain high for the next couple of days. Sport Scotland’s website is putting the risk at category four, on a scale of one to five.
The photograph, by Colin Souze and licensed under Creative Commons, shows a view from the summit of the Devil’s Staircase looking south over the east end of Glen Coe, towards Buachaille Etive Mòr with Creise and Meall a’ Bhuiridh beyond.
Manchester kayakers swept into the Corryvrechan
Two kayakers from Greater Manchester who paddled out of Loch Melfort on Saturday afternoon got caught in strong tidal streams that took them into the terrifying Corryvrechan whirlpool between Argyll’s islands of Jura and Scarba. One kayak overturned in the turbulence and when the other man then made an emergency call the situation was aggravated by his giving the wrong position. Although the two middle aged men were well prepared, they had not realised exactly where the tides had taken them. Instead of realising that they were in the Gulf of Corryvrechan, the third strongest whirlpool on the world, they thought they were in The Grey Dogs – another dangerous race a little further north between Scarba and Lunga. However all was well. The men got themselves ashore on Scarba and were found by MV Porpoise, a naval SAR helicopter from HMS Gannet in Prestwick and the Oban Lifeboat – which had been scrambled in the middle of an open day. LIfeboat Coxswain Ronnie MacKillop congratulated them on doing all the right things once they got into difficulties.
If you want to get some idea of what these guys got into, here’s a You Tube video of a RIB that took a deliberate trip into the Corryvrechan.
Teenager airlifted from Scarba after ravine plunge
An RAF helicopter from HMS Gannet at Prestwick airlifted a thirteen year-old Yorkshire boy from Argyll’s Isle of Scarba to Paisley’s Royal Alexandra Hospital, with Coastguards from Oban and Appin also called out and reckoning the boy was lucky to be alive. He and others on an activity trip to the island had evidently been looking at a waterfall when he fell – avoiding all the rocks on the way down and finishing up with no more than a broken leg.